One of the strongest earthquakes in the history of the Caribbean shook Haiti on Tuesday at 4:53 Haitian time. A hospital collapsed and people shouted for help, according to authorities and witnesses.
Communications are almost entirely cut off, which has made it difficult to get clear-cut information on the damage, while the aftershocks continue to shake a country where most people live in desperate poverty, many buildings are weak and some areas are without electricity. Catholic Relief Services representative in Port au Prince, Karel Zelenka, told US-based colleagues that “thousands of people must have been killed”, according to CRS spokesperson Sara Fajardo.
“He reported that there was a disaster and total chaos, that gigantic clouds of gray dust surrounded Port-au-Prince”, said Fajardo, speaking from Catholic Relief Services headquarters in Maryland. There were no immediate reports of dead or wounded.
The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0. It happened just before 5pm local time and its epicenter was 15 kilometers (10 miles) to the west of Port-au-Prince, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The event occurred at a depth of just 8 kilometers.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/…